4. Page Layout

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4. Page Layout

By being aware of the page layout in your documents, you can ensure that everything looks good. Maybe you think that the text is the most important thing, and I agree with you, but the layout of your documents is the text’s "public face" and it is the first thing the reader sees.

A sloppy layout could mean that the reader cannot be bothered to start reading the text, which means the whole thing becomes a wasted effort.

A good layout, however, will give the reader a good first impression, which means that your pearls of wisdom stand a better chance of being read. This is equally important whether you are trying to sell an idea, a product, or yourself in a job application.

You do not have to be a graphic artist to achieve a good result. Word has plenty of pre-designed templates that can help you along, and you can adjust everything yourself down to the smallest detail.

In this section you will learn how to align margins and tabs (tabulators), insert page numbers, create headers and footers and other cool features. You will also learn how to create two-sided prints.

4.1 Margins

There are three things to remember when aligning margins:

 Should there be room for headers and footers?

 Should there be room for holes in the paper?

 Does it look nice?

Whether the document looks nice is of course a subjective matter. As a rule of thumb, the margins should not be too small, meaning less than 1 cm. The pages will look too heavy if there is not enough space around the

text. Conversely, 3 cm would probably look a little crazy on an A4 page.

I usually work with a 2-cm margin on the left side and 1.5 cm on the right side. At the top I also have 1.5 cm, and at the bottom it is 2 cm. I think this gives a nice, balanced appearance.

However, if someone out there with graphic training should disagree with me, I defer.

When you read this book and look at the margins, you will discover that I have not used these sizes in the book. This is because I have let the publisher do the layout and concentrated on writing a good book.

4.1.1 Adjusting the Margins – the Quick Way

Enough talk about sizes of margins, now we will try to adjust them. There are two ways to adjust the margins. You can either adjust them visually with the mouse or edit them in the document settings for page setup. Visual adjustment is quick and reasonably accurate. Editing page setup is completely accurate, but it takes a little longer.

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First I will show you how to adjust the margins using the mouse. It is quick, and I prefer this method myself. On certain occasions it might be necessary to adjust margins via page setup.

I will return to that in the next section.

1. First ensure that you are in the Print Layout View. Click on the View Tab in the Ribbon and make sure the Print Layout button is pressed.

2. On the same Tab in the Ribbon, you must also make sure that the rulers are displayed. There should be a ”tick” by Ruler.

Figure 27:The Print Layout button

A horizontal ruler is now being displayed at the top along with a vertical ruler on the left side. The rulers are white inside the document margins and light blue outside. When you place the mouse on the border between the white and light blue areas, the mouse arrow changes to a double-headed arrow.

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Figure 28: Showing rulers.

To move the margin you simply press down the left mouse button when you see the double-headed arrow and drag the margin with the mouse. The default scale on the ruler is in centimeters, but it can be changed, for example to inches. This can be done in the Word-settings in the Advanced group.

The only place where it can be a little difficult to adjust the margin with the mouse is the left margin. There are some icons just where you need to click, which makes it somewhat difficult to hit the right spot. So if you have mandolin fever or you are just not very good with the mouse, you must enter Page Setup and adjust the margin from there.

Figure 29: The Margins button.

4.1.2 Adjusting Margins – the Accurate Somewhat Slower way

To adjust the margins with complete accuracy, click on the Margins button in the Page Layout Tab.

This opens a menu where you can choose between five different pre-designed configurations, including a two- sided setup. But if you click Custom Margins, you get access to fine-tuning everything.

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4.2 Page Setup

In Page Setup, you can set paper size, orientation, columns and margins. You can find the functions for Page Setup in the Page Layout Tab.

If you prefer the "old fashioned" way to set the Page Setup, you can click the Size button and select More Paper Sizes at the bottom of the menu that appears. This opens the window that was used in earlier versions of Word, with Tabs for margins, paper and layout.

Figure 30

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4.2.1 Setting Page Size

It is not Word, but your printer that puts restrictions on what size paper (also known as page size) you can use.

Normally one A4 is used for most things, but your printer is also able to print on envelopes and other types of paper.

The fast way to change the page size is to click the Size button (Figure 30) in the Page Layout Tab, then select the appropriate paper size.

If you cannot find the right size on the list, you can select the menu item More Paper Sizes.

In the window that opens, you have all the same paper sizes as the previous list, but there is an item at the bottom that says Custom. With the custom paper size you can set the paper to the exact size you want. But be aware that if you want to print it, it requires that your printer can handle the format.

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Figure 31

If you have access to a printer with multiple feeders/trays, you can also choose to have the first page taken from one tray and subsequent pages from another. It is handy if, for example, you want to print a letter where page 1 is written on high-quality letter paper, while the remaining pages are written on plain paper.

Finally, you can also choose whether the changes you have made, will apply to the “entire document" or the

“remaining text". For example, if you have a ten-page document and the cursor was on page 5, you can choose the "remaining text”, after which your changes are only valid from page 5 onwards.

What actually happens if you select the "rest of the document" is that page 5 to page 10 is created as a separate

"section" in the document. This section will then have a separate page setup.

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4.2.2 Orientation

Orientation is either Portrait or Landscape, and this will probably be the available choices until we all get a taste for round or triangular paper. The Direction button allows you to select the orientation.

Figure 32

4.2.3 Columns

You can also write your text into columns. Columns often make the text easier to read.

In the Page Layout Tab, click on Columns. Here you can choose between various standard setups, but you can also select Custom Columns.

Figure 30: The Columns Button

You are now inside the settings for columns. You can make up to 13 columns (or columns) in your document, and you can decide how wide each should be.

It is possible to format a single section with columns, while the rest of the document is without columns. Just before you select the function, you simply highlight the text you want formatted as columns.

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Figure 31: Setting Columns

4.3 Sections

In this book I will touch only briefly on the concept of "Sections". You can arrange a Word document in a number of Sections. A Section is almost like a small document. It can have its own page layouts with paper size, headers and footers, etc.

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The idea is perhaps not obvious, but imagine that you have to write a long report. Most pages consist of Portrait text on A4 pages, but perhaps you need to show a complex chart that you want printed in Landscape A4 format, and you would still like the chart printed as a part of the report with the page number included.

As mentioned, you should be aware that Sections behave as independent documents, though they are just pages in a larger document. If you change the page setup in the document, check that all sections still have the right setup.

4.4 Page Header and Footer

In a nice report, you can put a little text and/or graphics at the top and bottom of each page. This could be the report title, the company logo and the page number. That is what headers and footers are for.

There are many pre-designed headers and footers, but you can also make your own.

Headers and footers are above the top margin and below the bottom margins respectively, so you should allocate space for them when you define your margins.

If you have performed all of the book's exercises to the letter, you now have a document with three pages that we can work on. If you have not made the previous exercises, I recommend that you create a paper of 2-4 pages that you can use for this exercise.

1. Go to page 1 in the document. You can create headers and footers from anywhere in the document, but in this exercise we start on page 1.

2. Click on the Insert Tab in the Ribbon.

3. Click the on the Header button.

Figure 35

You can now choose between some pre-designed headers, but in order to learn properly we must create a header from scratch.

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4. In the menu that appears, click on Edit Header.

The document has now changed appearance. You can say that it is changed from "document mode" to "header"

mode. The text in the document itself has been dimmed, and the cursor is now above the top margin. The Ribbon has also changed look, and you will find a range of features specifically designed for this task.

Figure 32: The Document in "Header Mode".

There are no real limitations on what you can do in the header. All you can do in the document itself, you can also do in the header. The only limitation is space, and the fact that you cannot write long texts. Anything you type in the header will be repeated on all pages of the document or section

5. Click on the Page Numbers button in the Ribbon.

6. In the menu that appears, point to the menu item Current Location.

7. In the submenu that appears, you can choose between different page number formats. Click on the last one on the list, called Bold Numbers.

You have now inserted page numbers on all pages of the document. Try to scroll down to one of the other pages, so you can check the result.

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Figure 37: Your document now has page numbers

We have not finished the header yet, because what we have done is simply too boring to look at. This is the time to learn how to switch between "document mode" and "header" mode.

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To shift to document mode, simply double-click on any text in the document.

When shifting to header mode, you do exactly the same; double-click on the header to activate it.

You might have noticed that when you are in header mode, the footer is also active. You can edit the footer the same way as the header. The only difference is the location.

Now we will create a new header, but this time we make it look nicer. I will show how I usually do a header, since I think it gives a rather nice result. It will also be a demonstration of how to insert a table in the header to help control where the individual text elements are.

1. Make sure you are in header mode, and delete the page number so that the header is blank again.

2. In the Ribbon, choose the Insert Tab.

3. Click on the Table button.

4. In the menu that appears, click on Insert Table.

Figure 33: The Insert Table button.

A small window will open (see Figure 39), where you must choose how many rows and columns you want in your table. For our header, we must have a table with one row and two columns. It becomes a very small table that can hardly even be called a table. But in Word it is still technically a table with two cells.

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Figure 39

5. Fill out the window ”Insert Table” as shown in Error! Reference source not found. and click on OK.

We now have a table with two cells in our header. Next, we must write a title in the left cell and a page number in the right.

Figure 34: Header with table 6. In the left cell, write “Word Exercises”.

7. Place the cursor in the right cell.

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8. Click on the Design Tab in the Ribbon.

9. Click on the Page Number button.

10. In the menu, choose Current Location, then Bold Numbers.

If the table has changed in height, it is because an invisible space has been inserted after the page number. If you think the table is too high, you should delete this space

We need to adjust the page number so it appears on the right side.

11. Highlight the page number.

12. Choose the Home Tab in the Ribbon.

13. Click on the Align Right button ( ).

The title has now been adjusted to the left and the page number to the right. Next, we will change the formatting of the table, so it is only visible as a line that marks the separation between the header and the document itself.

14. When you hold the mouse over the table, a small cross will appear in the upper left corner. Click on the cross to highlight the table.

15. Choose the Design Tab in the Ribbon and click on the small arrow to the right on the Borders button.

16. In the menu that appears, click No Borders.

17. Click again on the arrow to the right of the Borders button.

18. Click on the menu item Bottom Border.

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Figure 35: The button Borders, and the menu point No border.

Now the header is finished. If you have managed to do everything as described, your header will look like this:

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Figure 36: The finished header

We have not yet discussed images and graphics, but if you have already mastered this, you are welcome to make the header or footer more colourful.

When the header is active, you can also explore ways to make a special first page, or make the odd and even pages different. It may be necessary if you plan to print on both sides of the paper, like a normal book.

4.5 Tabs (tabulators)

Tabs are used to put text into columns, so they are nicely aligned. The default Tabs are a couple of centimetres, but you can also define your own.

Tabs can be difficult to work with, so if they give you too much trouble, I would suggest that you put your text columns into a table instead.

There are different types of Tabs that you can use:

 Left Tab : Text and numbers are aligned to the left border relative to the Tab position.

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 Right Tab : Text and numbers are aligned to the right border relative to the Tab position.

 Centre Tab : Text and numbers are centred relative to the Tab position.

 Decimal Tab : Aligns numbers around the decimal point at the Tab position.

 Bar Tab : Inserts a vertical bar at the Tab position.

The quickest way to set the Tab position is to click the Tab Selector until the desired type is displayed, then click the horizontal ruler at the location you want.

The Tab Selector is located at the top left where the rulers meet. (see Figure 37).

If you need to set the Tab point with complete accuracy, then double-click on the horizontal ruler, to open the Tab Window. Here you can insert Tabs with great accuracy.

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Figure 37: The Tab Selector

Figure 38: The Tab Window.

When you set a Tab, it applies only to the line that the cursor is in. If you make line breaks from the line with the Tab stop after it is set, the next line will also have this Tab.

If you select multiple lines when you set the Tabs, they will of course apply to all of these lines.

Once you have set your tab stops, you can easily move the cursor to them by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard, which is the wide button to the left of the "Q" key.